Remnants
by KuryakinGirl
Summary: Black Widow vanishes and SHIELD sends the one who found her in the first place to get her back. Follows "Opportunities" and "Adjustments."
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer—Characters belong to Marvel. Any similarity to events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. No copyright infringement intended.

Author's Notes—Because I keep coming back to them. And because Cindy Ryan is epic. :D This is dedicated to you, my friend. Thank you for everything!

Remnants—Black Widow vanishes and SHIELD sends the one who found her in the first place to get her back. This follows "Opportunities" and "Adjustments."

* * *

She knew her window of opportunity was tiny— minuscule if she was being honest. It was a perfect storm of conditions. No one would look for her, not for five, six days at the most. She didn't have time to come up with a better, more thoughtful plan. It was time to go.

She sighed when she looked at her suitcase. Instead of flying on one of SHIELD's vehicles, she had to take to the air commercially and that meant no weapons. No guns. No throwing knives. Nothing. She felt completely _naked_ if the truth were told.

In near _agony_, she removed everything that could be confiscated or would prevent her from boarding. Instead, she packed cash—lots of it. She'd need to restock when she landed, a prospect that wasn't her favorite, but she would just have to deal.

Her apartment, normally spotless, looked like a hurricane had blown through. Clothes were strewn about, her weapons abandoned on the coffee table and floor. She could only imagine what the reaction would be, if she wasn't able to complete what she needed to do _quickly_. She needed to be in and out and back before Clint was up and moving, before Fury returned from his conference, and before Coulson went looking for her for something.

Taking a slow breath, she shouldered her bag. Natasha Romanoff wouldn't accept failure. She owed a debt, and she paid those, with interest as necessary. No matter what good she did with SHIELD, deep down, she knew it would never be enough for what she'd done _before_. Her only hope was to do what she could in between official missions, in the hope that one day, she'd wash all that red away, that she'd be in the black once more, living up to at least part of her code name.

* * *

He sighed, looking at the off-white walls that surrounded him. He knew it was meant to be somehow warm, maybe to remind him of home. The problem was he'd grown up _without_ one. A traveling circus wasn't all that much different from SHIELD. He went from one city to the next, told what to do and when to complete it by. What was new, however, was the _pain_.

The worst that had happened while on the road with the circus was the occasional singe from the fire breather, maybe a rope burn from trying to set up the tents. If anything, it was a minor annoyance rather than a major layup.

Having fallen from his precarious perch and landing with a _crunch_ on his left leg had been excruciating to say the least. If it hadn't been for his partner, he wouldn't have made it out. If she hadn't covered him, helped him get to his one good leg… he'd be dead. He knew that for certain.

While they wound up succeeding, it hadn't been the prettiest win in their book. So long as they were both breathing at the end of the day, however, he'd take it. What he hated was the time spent wasted in a SHIELD medical facility. The doctors were fine, maybe a little chilly on the bedside manner. The nurses weren't much to look at but they were somewhat friendlier.

Coulson had been in, had brought him a few magazines to read while recuperating. It beat work documentation. He'd had to leave shortly after the visit, though, on a search of some peculiar relic. He'd been pretty mum on the details. The pain meds made Clint's head a little fuzzy anyway and so he was pretty sure if he had been told, he wouldn't have wanted to know.

Fury had been by briefly before jetting off to some meeting with the President. The director didn't stop in to visit every wounded agent. Clint wasn't sure if he should be proud he ranked a visit or concerned that the Director was checking up on his progress to make the decision if he would keep the archer on or not.

He hadn't seen Natasha, not since the day they'd arrived back stateside. She'd flown with him, watched as the orderlies loaded him onto a gurney, and whisked him to an exam room. He'd kept his eyes on her as long as he was able, which wasn't terribly long, not with an oxygen mask soon affixed to his face and being ordered to lie still.

She'd looked so pale.

The memory hung with him, haunting his hours of mindless waiting. He couldn't imagine she was scared—particularly not for him. The SHIELD extraction team had told them repeatedly that he'd be fine as they were flown to safety. It was something else, but he couldn't place what that might be.

The fact that she hadn't been by to see him, hadn't called or, at the very least, texted, frustrated him. It wasn't like he was in isolation. She could've come by anytime she wanted to; she just didn't. He tried to rationalize that it was her Russian upbringing—the distance. But, in the years that they'd worked together, he felt like they were getting closer, that he was helping her bridge that gap where she wanted to linger back, in the shadows, and he reassured her that it was okay to rely on others, to be part of the group.

As he lay there by himself, he wondered if he'd only been fooling himself.

* * *

Stay tuned…


	2. Chapter 2

For notes and disclaimer, please see part one.

Previously—Natasha leaves for parts unknown while Clint, on the injured list, wonders about her.

* * *

He'd already been laid up for two weeks and it was about to drive him insane. Crutches were often an exercise in futility. While he had great upper body strength given his chosen weapon proficiency, he was annoyed at the slow, uneven gait he was forced to walk with his leg in a cast. Maneuvering to the local store and back was a job and a half. Frequently, he felt like he'd run a marathon by the time he made it back to his apartment with the few meager purchases.

He was strongly considering chucking this "cooking" thing for delivery.

Granted, he was eating a lot of things that took zero prep time. Sandwiches, cereal.

He slowed when he saw a pair of familiar black SUVs already parked at his apartment complex. He was still on medical leave; they could take it up with SHIELD's own doctors. Sighing, he pressed on, pondering what might have happened to bring them to his doorstep.

"Must be getting pretty bad," he commented as he saw the similarly dressed agents in dark suits and sunglasses.

"You have no idea," came the booming voice from within the back of the car.

Clint paused, recognizing the familiar cadence of Director Fury. "Sir?"

"Seems we've had an agent who's _flown the coup_," said Nicholas Fury, eying the archer.

He hefted the shopping bag. "Just on a resupply run… well… more like a shuffling _amble_, sir."

The smile the director offered was flat. "Get in; let's have a chat."

He dipped his head slightly, holding the aforementioned bag out to one of the myriad of agents guarding the SUV before he began the slow process of climbing inside.

"When's the last time you spoke with your partner?"

"Not since we got back. Why?" he asked, his brow creasing.

"She's missed two requests for check-in. Her apartment is empty. We've run every known alias we have on her; she's in the wind."

Clint's mind reeled. It couldn't be—she couldn't have just _left_, could she?

"You have anything you want to tell me about her whereabouts?" the director asked, leaving no room for doubt that he believed Clint knew something.

"She didn't come see me in the hospital; hasn't contacted me since my release either. I assumed she had already been reassigned in my downtime. It's not like this thing is coming off anytime soon," he said, resting a hand on the thick cast.

"Nobody knows her better than you, Barton."

"What can I do?"

"What you've done once before… Find her."

Clint slowly looked up at Fury. "Sir?"

Fury knocked on the window twice and the agents surrounding his SUV scattered. It wasn't long before the engine started and the small caravan took off. "I'm opening every case file she's worked on, her personnel files, even the files from when you were tasked to kill her. Every SHIELD resource is at your disposal."

He rubbed at his forehead. "When was the first check-in request?"

"A week ago."

"A week," he breathed. "And you're just now telling me?" Clint asked, suddenly furious.

"You wanna tell me what you were gonna do, there, Hawkeye? You don't exactly have wings to counteract _that_," he said, pointing to the cast.

"If she was taken—"

"There's no evidence that she was removed from her apartment by force. It's a peculiar scene, though," he said, selecting a file from the case in the floor by his feet. "Seems she's unarmed, wherever she is."

Clint accepted the folder, flipping through the images of Natasha's apartment. He'd only been by once or twice, usually to drop her off after a long mission. He'd barely been let through the front door, but as he reviewed the weaponry that was left, he could tell they were her favorites, her go-to weapons. He knew well that those particular throwing knives had been through multiple hells with her, and the guns were her safety nets, that she was never without them. "You started pulling passenger manifests yet?"

"From where?" Fury asked. "She could've left from any commercial airport… might've gone an hour or two out of the way so as to avoid our net."

"Just start pulling," he said, glancing up. "I'd go back as far as when we got back into town."

"You think she's that cold? That she'd leave with her partner in the hospital?"

Clint's blood boiled at Fury's accusations about her. "I think she's the best you've seen, and that's why you're worried she's gone. I think you want her back on our side, and you'll do whatever you have to do to accomplish that, including calling me in from medical leave. I think you think worse things about her so, with all due respect, Director, how 'bout you get those manifests?"

* * *

She felt weird, disconnected as she meandered down the street. When the frigid wind blew her dark auburn tresses, she pulled her parka around her tighter, continuing in her trudge from her apartment to work. It was a dull existence but she didn't know how to make it better, more exciting.

She couldn't put her finger on it, but it was as though she knew she was missing out on some adventure, something that was just over the next hill or around the next corner. Instead, she just continued on to work, wishing she was somewhere else, somewhere warmer than Russia.

It wasn't that she didn't love her homeland, because she did. It wasn't that she wasn't grateful, because she was: she had a job, a roof over her head, and food to eat. She remembered vague horror stories of the communist regime, nightmares her elders told her about being hungry, nearly freezing.

She should be thankful and accept her position with grace. It was like a disconnected voice rang in her head that she should just get used to it. She tried to place the voice, because it sounded different than her own. It sounded shrill, more high-pitched. It repeated on occasion, like a mantra.

It made her wonder if she had any grasp on reality at all, if she was slipping into some psychotic break. She guessed the bleak winters really did take their toll.

Pushing past all the lingering doubts, she entered the nondescript office building, passing numerous desks, all alike and outdated, toward her small cubicle in the back. The dingy half-walls that were her oasis were covered with yellowing memos from years ago, things that might've been important when they were first issued but she wasn't sure why she still had them. She looked at her calendar, where she'd marked off every day that month, though she wasn't sure what she was counting down toward. Maybe it was just the ability to call it a day, to have something to do to break up the monotony of the work she was doing.

Insurance billing wasn't all that exciting, after all.

She tugged her parka off and it nearly enveloped her computer chair. She sat down, sliding her lithe legs under the desk. As she started up her computer and checked her voicemail, she doodled idly on the scratch paper in front of her telephone. She frequently drew the simple hourglass shape. Occasionally, when she wound up with a long-winded customer on her line, she would add a round body and eight legs.

She wasn't sure what fascination she had with spiders, particularly the black widow, but her artistic muse seemed to enjoy it. If it wasn't an arachnid, it was an arrow, a whole shower of them. On some, the fletching designs were small, tight, while others were wide, angular. The arrowheads might've been piercing or blocky.

One of her coworkers, a plump middle-aged woman with graying black hair, leaned against the cubicle wall. "You look more distraught than normal, Natalya," she cooed gently.

The redhead smiled, though it never reached her eyes. "Just tired."

"You're far too young—and too pretty—to be tired all the time… unless you're tired for a _very_ good reason!" the older woman, Irina, said, suddenly giddy. "You must tell me all about him!"

She shook her head. "I'm still not dating anyone."

Irina heaved a long, heavy sigh. "Life's too short not to have some fun, little one."

"I did have another dream, though…"

While her smile was still warm, Irina clearly didn't want to encourage her. "Dreams are all well and good, until you find the real thing. This mystery man who appears only in your sleep… he's no good for you. You need a living, breathing man."

"He feels so real," she said, leaning back in her chair. "Strong arms, kind eyes… a light, carefree laugh…"

"All things that can be found in real people, Natalya, I promise."

"It's like he cares about me, though…"

Irina shook her head. "You've just said it: it's like. Stop looking for like. Find the real thing. It's out there."

She still wished he was out there. Her mystery man with the spiked blond hair, with the sunglasses… "I guess you're right." Irina just didn't get it. She never felt as alive, as real as she did in her dreams whenever he appeared. And when he was gone, when she awoke, she never felt so alone.

* * *

Stay tuned…


	3. Chapter 3

For notes and disclaimer, please see part one.

Previously: Clint gets called on by Director Fury to find his missing partner.

* * *

Phil Coulson occasionally checked in on Clint, bringing a cup of coffee, a sandwich from the mess, or new files as they came in. He could've easily farmed that work out to someone else, but he didn't. He cared about his agents, and to see Clint that torn up about what was going on was difficult to take.

He just couldn't fathom why Natasha would've left like she had, without so much as a word to Clint.

It was evident that it bothered the archer more than anyone else on the SHIELD compound.

Clint poured over the passenger manifests from every airport within a four hundred mile radius, hoping that one name would jump out at him, that something would make sense. He struggled, though, mentally replaying every single conversation they'd ever had, doing the best he could to recreate them. She was good—she was excellent—but she had to have slipped up somehow. He had to know something. She wouldn't have left without leaving him a clue, would she?

"How's it going?" Coulson asked.

"About the same as the last six times you asked," Clint answered, never once looking up from the files spread out in front of him.

"You haven't had any sleep since the first time I asked."

"If Nat's in trouble, then there's no time to waste."

"You don't know that she's in trouble. She could've flipped."

Clint's jaw suddenly tightened. "You don't know that either."

"I'm just looking at her history… She didn't have to join us."

"I brought her in once, didn't I?" Clint asked, looking up at Coulson. "I can do it again."

It was the first time Coulson saw the haunted look in the younger man's eyes. There was a hunger there he'd never noticed before, one that was predatory and protective. Clint cared for his partner, perhaps more than he should've. "Just be careful, Barton," Coulson cautioned lightly. "You may not like what you find."

Clint didn't respond; he merely looked back at the names. Something had to make sense. Something had to jump out. He closed his eyes for a moment, staving off the exhaustion a little while longer. When he opened them again, he spotted a name: "Black, Willow."

It didn't match with any of her previous aliases, but the innocent play on words couldn't be ignored. Newly energized, he soon discovered that the one-way ticket to Moscow had been purchased the day after their arrival back home, with cash.

After pulling security footage from the airport, he found pay dirt. He watched her graceful movements, her cautious nature to avoid the cameras from catching her face. "What are you up to, Nat?" he asked, picking up the phone to get a flight to Moscow himself.

* * *

At three thirty every afternoon, Irina appeared at her cubicle with a steaming cup of chamomile tea. "For your weary bones, little one," she said, offering her the mug.

"You really are too sweet," the redhead returned, accepting it.

"You always look so worn out by this time of the day. And it is tiring, to sit for so long, to listen to people blab on and on and _on_ about whatever it is that ails them, why they're upset about their policies. They just don't understand that we don't write them; that we just enforce them. It's not our fault they didn't read the fine print."

She gave a one-shouldered shrug. "At least the day is almost over."

Irina smiled, watching as the younger woman took a slow sip. "That's very true. Drink up, little one."

She returned to her computer, her fingers flying across the keyboard to enter data from her previous phone call into the system. She felt like she had bigger, better things she was supposed to be doing, that her muscles felt atrophied from disuse. Sighing, she continued to sip her tea throughout the rest of the afternoon, draining it entirely by quitting time. Getting to her feet, she snuggled into her parka again, zipping it tightly.

Her feet felt heavy as she began the half mile trudge home. While the work wasn't challenging, it was draining. It was frustrating to sit there and be figuratively chained to the desk. While she should be happy for the exercise, for the fresh air, it only made her tired and the wind stung her face.

As she walked, she allowed her mind to drift, and she once again found the mental image of _him_. For some reason, she could picture him discussing spiders, and she wondered if that had spawned her obsession with scribbling them. Why would she have a dream about a handsome man who talked about spiders? Maybe she really did have issues…

The closer she got to home, the harder it was to focus on where exactly home was. The row houses all looked alike. The numbers ran together from one door to the next, and she struggled to remember her own.

She sighed, stopping for just a moment to catch her breath. Her green eyes flitted from one house to the next and back again, but she became dizzy. She felt like the ground had tilted beneath her feet; that the world had begun to spin haphazardly about.

Her arms felt like gelatin as she struggled to place her hands on either side of her head, as though steadying herself might still her surroundings. "Stop it," she muttered. "Just stop it…"

She thought she heard a voice, in the brief seconds before her world became completely black: "Not yet, little one."

* * *

Clint sat on the SHIELD plane, his leg propped up carefully on the chair beside him. He continued to pour over Natasha's files, particularly the ones before she joined SHIELD. She'd often talked about her ledger, and he got it. As someone who hadn't exactly followed the straight and narrow in his younger days, he knew what it felt like, to owe the world something. He'd made any number of horrible choices before he'd changed his ways. There were still things he felt guilt over, things he wished he could go back in time and do again.

He knew, though, short of Stark Industries creating a time machine, it just wouldn't happen.

So he focused on what he could do, which was move forward. If he did all the good he could, if he moved too fast for the bad to catch up, maybe no one would recognize or realize that he'd been the one wreaking havoc in the past.

In more ways than one, he understood Natasha's plight. It was why he wasn't giving up on her, why he wasn't letting go of the hope that she was out there, trying to do something right. He just knew she'd gone about it the wrong way. If she'd only asked for his help, he'd have given it, without question. If she hadn't wanted SHIELD to know, he'd have helped her figure out a way to keep it a secret. He'd have done whatever he could to help her.

It stung that she hadn't trust him.

He couldn't let that stop him from helping her now, however, and he focused on it. In addition to the files, he had a selection of the world's newspapers from the weeks leading up to his injury. She had to have seen something that made her split. There had to have been an impetus for her to go, she wouldn't have just walked away without a reason.

There were numerous articles of interest, but given her destination, he narrowed his search to her mother country. Something had to have happened in Russia that she wanted to fix. There was discussion of a gang leader getting out of prison at long last, a few enemies of the state escaping into the night… things that might've been tied to Natasha once upon a time. He tried to remember the stories she'd told him about her ledger.

It had taken a while for him to realize that the ledger didn't actually exist, excepting in her mind. The mental list she had of what she'd done to whom, who she'd hurt, and why she'd done it. It sounded like the world's worst guilt trip, but he knew what it was: baggage. He'd done his best to help convince her that it didn't matter, that she didn't owe anyone anything anymore, and that what mattered was what was in front of her instead of what was behind her.

She was stubborn. She hadn't paid attention to his gentle reminders.

He settled back into his chair, looking at the empty one across the aisle, where she normally would've sat. It was weird, to work without her. He'd done many missions by himself before he'd recruited her, but since she came into his life, it was now peculiar to be there by himself. He missed the banter, her quirked eyebrow.

He missed her.

The Natasha he knew wouldn't have abandoned post without a reason. The Natasha he knew was loyal to SHIELD. The Natasha he knew had given up all the rest for a chance at redemption. He knew all she was doing was cleaning up the remnants of her past life. He just wished that Fury and Coulson had the same faith in her that he had.

Part of him worried that, if he brought her home, she could be removed from the agency, brought up charges, thrown in the brig indefinitely… or, worst of all, that they'd carry out the initial order on her. While all that depended on him finding her, the very real possibility of their running had to be in the back of his mind. After all, maybe there was something she knew that he didn't. That festering thought bothered him most of all.

* * *

Stay tuned…


	4. Chapter 4

For notes and disclaimer, please see part one.

Previously: Clint thinks he's picked up Natasha's trail.

* * *

She dragged herself to work again, shivering in the cold. It was the same as it had been the day before. She was tired, worn out, and ready to go home as she clocked in. Sleep was her only real escape, and it brought more questions than answers, particularly when she encountered a face that seemed so familiar and yet so new.

She was beginning to believe Irina, that she needed to just forget about him. Dreams weren't real. They were just fictionalizations, imaginations… They were for children. They had no place in her world. Why she'd allowed herself to get caught up in them in the first place surprised her.

She'd never been so naive before.

Irina was already at her cubicle when she arrived. "You look more tired today than you did yesterday…"

"I'm not sleeping well," she admitted, easing out of her parka.

"No more dreams of your mystery man?"

"Not last night," she lied. Why he was in a forest, she didn't quite understand. But in the mere seconds before her alarm had sounded to wake her, she remembered seeing an arrow sticking out of the tree in front of her.

"My little one, growing up," Irina said with a proud smile.

"I guess so," she said with a shrug.

"It's for the best, believe me."

She hoped so. As she began her morning routine after Irina wandered off, she again found herself doodling. This time, though, to the arrows, she added a very particular, peculiar bow.

In annoyance, she crumpled the scratch paper. Fairy tales were only stories. Any knight or knave or… whatever he was… wasn't real. No matter how much she wanted him to be, she couldn't will him into existence.

Not that the thought hadn't crossed her mind in her frigid walk to work.

Sighing heavily, she threw her drawing away. Irina was right. She needed to grow up.

* * *

As he disembarked, he wondered if he'd been smart to refuse another agent helping him. After all, he wasn't exactly back to full strength. While he'd avoided the pain medications, taking nothing more than over-the-counter aspirin since getting the word that Natasha was gone, he was still on crutches.

While it might provide him some cover—who would expect him to be a highly-trained government agent?—it also provided unique challenges. What happened if he got in over his head? He wouldn't have questioned his abilities if it was any other day, if it was any other situation. Being dependent upon the crutches wasn't his idea of an asset.

He also sighed when he realized that Natasha had a head start longer than two weeks. She could've been anywhere by now. Moscow could've only been the starting point, and Russia was entirely too large a place to go searching on his lonesome.

He started with the airport security office at the international airport. With the blanket permission from SHIELD, it was better than any of the allowances under the PATRIOT Act at home.

After reviewing security footage from her arrival date, he spotted the same things he'd seen when she left: avoiding full camera exposure, graceful movements. While it was subtle, he could tell she was worried. She checked and rechecked areas as she entered and moved through them. He'd seen her do that before, when they were together on missions, but he'd never seen her do it with such frequency.

Although, if he'd left his homeland in the same way she had, he might've been more concerned, too.

After making her way through immigration, she hired a taxi. Though the footage wasn't the clearest, he had the company name and the time stamp. He should be able to track her movements after the airport, at least for another few miles.

The records at the cab company weren't the best, but the drivers were chatty, especially when offered large amounts of American currency. Clint had no qualms giving away large bills, particularly when SHIELD was bankrolling the entire operation. Plus, she was worth every penny and then some.

With another hundred, Clint found himself riding in the back of the same cab, taking the exact same path from the airport to the residential area. His keen eyes tried to take everything in as they sped by, the commercial districts, the governmental agencies and offices, even schools.

He tried to discern as to whether or not she'd picked this path intentionally. The hardest part was trying to determine if she'd chosen it to see something, or to avoid something. As he rode, he ticked off the cases in his head, the ones where SHIELD knew it had been the Black Widow's handiwork, and ones where it was only suspected. He checked off whether or not it was a story she'd mentioned herself or whether it was something he could only assume.

It was like the biggest, worst chess game of his life.

He didn't mind the game. He just hated sitting at the board, trying to plot his next move. He much preferred to be up, walking around, scoping out the pieces and their location from every spot in the room. He'd always seen better from a distance.

Maybe that was his problem now. He was entirely too close to the problem, to Natasha, to be able to make a clearheaded decision. With a sigh, he rubbed at his tired eyes. Maybe Coulson was right, that sleep would do him some good.

He knew there was no rest for the weary, though, and when he arrived at her destination, he climbed out, hobbling around. It was mostly apartment buildings, tenements that had clearly seen better days, but that had been decades ago. There weren't any security cameras, not that there was much of anything worth securing, he guessed. There were a few people milling about, but it was entirely too cold for anyone to be out for long.

If they were anything like Natasha, he doubted anyone would be willing to talk to him, SHIELD credentials or no. While money had worked on the taxi driver, he wasn't sure it would work on the residents.

Searching his deepest memories, he tried to figure out if she'd dropped some hint as to where she'd grown up. She didn't talk about her childhood much, and he'd never pressed. They both still had secrets and, besides, if he had asked, it would've undermined his goals of trying to encourage her to live only in the now and forget the past.

If she'd gone off the grid for family, surely that was something that even Fury could understand. He imagined that, somewhere, deep down, the Director had others he cared about, that he'd drop everything for, even if that meant disobeying orders.

Making mental notes of the area, he headed back to the waiting taxi which took him to a hotel. He needed some sleep, and some more intel.

* * *

_You up, spider?_

Groggily, she opened one eye followed by the other. The last thing she remembered was having her afternoon tea, courtesy Irina. After that, everything became hazy. Her head pounded, throbbing in time with her pulse. Reaching up to cup her head, she realized she was home, though she couldn't recall how she'd gotten there.

Everything seemed normal. Her keys, as always, were on the hook by the door. Her parka was hanging from the coat rack in the corner. She, however, was sitting on the floor in between her hand-me-down couch and her coffee table.

And someone said something about a spider.

That sudden realization made her sit up straight, ignoring the pain that threatened to send her careening back to the floor. "Who's there?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. She surprised herself, realizing how scared she sounded. She felt out of sorts, out of tune with everything.

It was like everything was wrong.

"Is anyone… anyone there?" she asked again, her voice a little stronger, a touch louder than it had been moments ago.

Silence greeted her once again, and she was beginning to think she was really losing her faculties. Pushing herself to her feet, she made her way around her apartment, just to be safe. Her whole apartment was sparsely decorated—she'd never needed much. The closet in her bedroom, where someone might've hidden, was filled only with her clothes. Her pantry in the kitchenette held canned and boxed goods.

"This is just too strange," she said aloud, dropping onto one of two chairs she had around her small dining table.

_I think I'll take 'strange' to 'reckless.'_

It wasn't a person, she realized, but a memory. The harder she struggled to place where she'd heard that voice, those words before, the more fleeting those memories became. Soon she couldn't piece together what the voice sounded like, or the cadence of the sentences. She did settle on the voice being male, but the word "spider" seemed so out of place, so confusing.

Her mind floated to her dream, to the forest with the arrows and the man with the spiked blonde hair and sunglasses.

She knew, though, that it couldn't be real. No matter how badly she wanted to, she knew she couldn't cling to it. It was ephemeral and illusive. And that realization hurt.

* * *

Stay tuned…


	5. Chapter 5

For notes and disclaimer, please see part one.

Previously: Clint arrives in Moscow, following Natasha's trail.

* * *

While SHIELD had taken the precaution of marking all of Natasha's aliases on a no-fly list, Clint knew it wouldn't prevent her from going wherever she wanted to go, whenever she wanted to leave. While he hoped she was still in Moscow, he couldn't say definitively one way or the other, and he knew it was driving Fury insane.

He knew because Coulson was calling him every three hours, like clockwork. He did the math, shaking his head. "I realize that it's like 2 AM back home."

"So, make my life a little easier, Agent Barton. Let me know what's going on."

"Same as it was three hours ago, sir. I'm in the middle of Moscow in the middle of a hellishly cold winter, freezing my ass off."

"Hellishly cold is an interesting turn of phrase—"

Clint closed his eyes. "I'm sure you realize what I mean."

"Director Fury sent you expecting results…"

"Results I would like to provide, believe me, but even I need some sleep. This check-in schedule is killing my circadian rhythms."

"If I could provide something better than: 'I'm working on it,' then that might go a long way toward soothing the Director's concerns."

"If Nat were into something, if she were doing something… we'd know about it, same way we learned about the Black Widow in the first place. She wasn't exactly quiet about her kills. She just covered her tracks. I've got nothing. You've got nothing."

"So, she's setting a trap?"

"I don't know what she's doing."

"This doesn't bode well for your partner, you realize."

Clint closed his eyes. "I know that you and everyone else thinks the worst of her. I get that—"

"That's not at all what I think," Coulson said evenly.

"I'm doing the best I can. The first time I tracked her, it took a month. I've had barely a week. Not to mention the fact, I'm chasing a cold trail."

"That was an ill-advised move on our part," Coulson agreed.

"Then, give me time. Tell Fury I'm on it, because I am. Believe me, I want nothing more than to find her." The silence that followed was oddly deafening.

It took a solid minute before Coulson continued: "And to bring her in…"

Exhaustion made him laugh. "That goes without saying." "In," after all, was a nebulous term.

"Keep working. I'll check in with you soon."

"Six hours, sir, that's all I'm asking… to get actual, real sleep…"

"I'll see what I can do," Coulson said before ending the call.

Clint nearly threw the phone, except he knew it was his only lifeline to real-time information that he might need in order to track her. "Where are you, Nat? Why aren't you calling in? Why didn't you wait for me?"

In weary desperation, he did a local telephone search for anyone with the last name of Romanoff. While there weren't many, a quick cold-call to each left him as empty as he had been before.

"C'mon, spider. Where's your web?" he muttered.

* * *

Breaking up the monotony of the week, the company held staff meetings on Wednesdays. The conference room had been nice once but now it held stained ceiling tiles, a scratched table, and a few chairs repaired with dingy duct tape. It was, however, the only room large enough to hold the entire office, though not everyone got a seat.

Irina looked at the redhead, standing against the wall next to her. "You all right, little one? You didn't look so good leaving here last night."

"I'm fine," she returned flatly.

"You still don't look as though you're sleeping."

It wasn't a question, so she didn't answer.

"What's wrong?"

There was so much, she wasn't sure where to even begin. While she turned her green gaze to Irina, she never had an opportunity to vocalize the first of many issues because the meeting began. Idly, she scribbled a few notes, but again her pen turned from words to pictures. After drawing another spider, a half dozen arrows, she began on a new scribble, something that seemed vague and nonsensical at first… until she finished and she realized it was a stylized eagle.

Her startled jump caught Irina's attention. When the older woman looked over her shoulder, she scoffed. "Ugly duckling, to be sure, little one."

It wasn't a duck. It was an eagle. And it was familiar to her.

"Natalya?" asked her supervisor. He was pushing sixty, with thinning, gray hair. His milky blue eyes narrowed on the young staffer in the back.

Slowly, she circled the eagle once, twice, three times.

"Natalya," he repeated, a little louder.

Four, five, six times. She'd seen it before, a hundred times, she knew. She just couldn't remember where, or why, or what it symbolized. It was important, that much she knew.

"Ms. Rostov!"

She was so startled, she dropped her notepad.

He folded his arms over his chest. "Something you wished to share with the rest of us today?"

Retrieving the notepad, she quickly flipped it closed. "No, sir."

He glanced at Irina, who subtly shook her head.

"Dismissed, then," he said, waving everyone else off.

When she tried to leave, however, Irina stopped her.

"What is wrong with you, little one? I'm beginning to think you might need time at the hospital…"

At the mention of the word hospital, she flashed on familiar eyes, ones that looked in such pain. Maybe if she went to the hospital, she'd remember. Maybe she'd see him, whoever he was. "I'll get checked out this afternoon," she promised.

"Let's go now," Irina said. "I'll take you."

While she wanted to shake her head, to disagree, she found herself being tugged along toward the exit. "But, I haven't asked for time off…"

"When you return with the doctor's excuse, it'll be obvious, little one."

It concerned her. Irina's voice, normally full of kindness and compassion, seemed harsh and unforgiving. "I'll just go back to my desk; I can finish out today."

When Irina's hand clamped tightly over her wrist, however, she reacted. It was as though her muscles knew what to do, and she broke free of the restraint quickly, with speed that scared her. Startled, she looked at Irina, who's smiling face was devoid of any emotion.

"Sorry," she muttered, backing up slowly.

"Now you've done it," Irina said with a shake of her head. "We'll have to take this strain back to formula. Clearly, it isn't working nearly as well as we'd hoped."

"Formula? What are you talking about?" she asked, still taking one cautious step back followed by another.

"My favorite little test subject," Irina said, a cruel smile blossoming on her face. "You're putting up a fight—too good of one."

She stopped when she realized she'd backed herself into a corner. She had only two things in her hands—her notebook and her pen. Killing the light by throwing the notebook at the switch, she rushed out the nearby door, slamming it shut behind her and jamming the pen under the door, to keep it closed.

Irina's laugh was cold and calculating. "You won't get far, little one. You're already suffering, aren't you? You're feeling overwhelmed, like it's all just too much for your little body to take. You should have some tea."

Realization hit her like a ton of bricks. She'd been drinking some kind of poison, day in and day out, hadn't she? Before she had time to fully comprehend the extent of the trouble she was in, she stopped thinking.

As her body crumpled to the floor, her supervisor stepped over her, removing the offending pen, releasing Irina. "This was supposed to keep her in check."

"She only has remnants of memory left. She's not yet figured out who she is, what she's truly capable of. We can save this."

"Our employer wants results…"

"And he'll have them," she said, crossing toward the fallen woman, checking for a pulse.

* * *

Stay tuned…


	6. Chapter 6

For notes and disclaimer, please see part one.

Previously: Clint gets hounded by Coulson. Natalya—Natasha—realizes there's something greatly amiss, but isn't able to comprehend how to get out of the trouble she's in.

* * *

When Clint woke, he realized he'd had a glorious five hours of uninterrupted, blissful, and dreamless sleep. He smiled a little as he sat up. "Thank you, Agent Coulson." Rubbing his hands over his face, he sighed. Maybe he should have asked for someone to help him. Though rest was beneficial, his leg was still a major liability.

Although, as he slowly got out of bed, he wondered why Fury hadn't insisted on sending a whole team…

Unless there was one already in place.

While he hadn't been on pain meds since the first day at the hospital—he didn't like the way they made him feel—he should've come to that realization earlier. He could blame the stress, the sleep deprivation, but he knew it was really because he was distracted. He was too close to Natasha, and Fury knew it, too.

Sighing, Clint checked his phone for updates. All her aliases were negative. No action on any of her bank accounts. She was still in the wind, same as before.

He checked his recent call list and added yet another number next to Coulson's name.

"Status."

Clint would've loved to have said: 'and good morning to you, too,' but refrained. He was appreciative and he'd show it. "Much better after some real sleep, thank you. Do you or your Russian contingent have anything for me?"

Coulson's answer was typical, cool. "_You're_ the Russian contingent."

"I meant the backup team. The one you've been feeding my coordinates and information." He might've been fishing, but he'd worked with Coulson long enough to know that if he'd gotten it right, the senior agent would usually acknowledge it. He was counting on that.

Coulson didn't clear his throat or sound uncomfortable in the least as he continued, undaunted. "They're posted around town. Train stations, banks."

He closed his eyes. _Success_.

"They've got a good cross-section of the city covered," continued Coulson. "Given Agent Romanoff's penchant for changing her looks, they're aware of the difficulty level of this observation assignment."

"And they've seen nothing?"

"No hits yet. All possibilities have been detained but were released when interrogated and determined not to be her."

"Next time they find one, I want to be notified."

"They're more than well-suited for the task, Agent Barton."

"You don't think her partner knows her best?"

"Considering you were unaware of her disappearance…" Coulson let the sentence drift off.

"Do you—does Director Fury—want her found or not? I can't operate without full knowledge."

There was a moment before Coulson answered, as though he was either weighing the options or getting permission from Fury himself. "You'll be apprised of any validated potentials."

Clint knew that was as good as it was going to get. "Thank you, sir."

"Next check in, three hours."

"Roger that," Clint returned before ending the call. He closed his eyes, sighing heavily.

* * *

She exhaled when she looked up at the three-story building. It was old, but sturdy. It was what people wanted in an insurance agency. And she needed a job if she wanted to keep her little apartment, her own corner of peace. She knew she should be excited, maybe even happy at the opportunities for her life but she felt lost, adrift more than anything.

"You all right, little one?"

She turned and smiled—it was what one was supposed to do when met with a kindness—at the older woman with graying black hair peeking out from under a burgundy knitted toboggan. "Just a little nervous," she admitted. "I have an interview today."

"Oh, little one, don't fret. I'm sure you'll be great," she said with a wink. "I'm Irina, by the way, a billing specialist."

"Natalya," she returned, taking the older woman's outstretched hand.

"Come, Natalya. I'll show you where to go."

It felt oddly surreal, like some kind of déjà vu, both in emotions and the situation itself. She could only chalk it up to nerves, but it left a nagging feeling at the very edge of her consciousness, like she shouldn't be there, like she was supposed to be somewhere else, doing something else, with someone else.

But, since she couldn't figure out what that "else" was, she followed Irina up the slick stairs and into the building. It was clear it hadn't been redecorated in several decades. The tile flooring had yellowed with age, and the furniture all looked like Cold War relics. Even the elevator she cautiously climbed into had to be older than she was.

"So, what did you do before?" Irina asked as they slowly ascended.

She answered, but the words came out practiced. Even as she spoke, it felt unnatural. "I was a secretary at a doctor's office."

"Oh, excellent! So you're already versed in medical and insurance jargon. That's perfect." Irina patted her shoulder. "I have no doubt that you'll be joining me on the second floor soon." They disembarked on the third floor, and Irina showed her to the director's office. "See you soon, little one."

She again felt out of place, lingering there by the assistant's desk. In her mind's eye, she saw a different workplace, one with the latest technology, with all-new furnishings, with uniforms and suits and, most of all, no parkas. She shivered.

* * *

Irina watched from a two-way mirror as Natasha Romanoff gave every answer she was supposed to in her interview—that she was the youngest of seven, that she moved to the big city to spread her wings and fly.

The man beside her shook his head. "She still hesitates at that line, 'to fly.' Why?"

The kindness was gone from her face. "While under hypnosis, she doesn't. It's only once she's been released, that she seems to fall back into her own cadence, her own inflection. None of the other test subjects have done that."

He sighed. "We're going to have the same problem again, aren't we?"

She hesitated. "With all due respect, sir, why don't you just kill her? After what she did to your father—"

"What better way to test your new process for _replacement_ than to utterly destroy her?"

"It may be that she's just not a good test subject. Given her talents, her abilities, her employer… Maybe SHIELD provides for some psychological protections?"

He scoffed. "The only true way to test your methods is to push the science to the limits, to move from worthless nobodies to _somebody. _No one will miss a strung-out homeless whelp who decides they're the long-lost Anastasia. You have, at your disposal, one of the greatest chameleons to walk the earth, someone who alters her identity as she changes her clothes. To force her into a new persona, when it is not her doing, that's something impressive. It's also something you've been yet to accomplish."

"It will happen," Irina assured him. "It will happen _this time_. I've increased the medications as high as is practical, as is safe without turning her brain utterly to goulash."

"For your sake, I sincerely hope this works."

"It will. And it certainly wouldn't have happened without our partnership—"

He laughed, a sinister, calculating sound. "My dear Dr. Olenev, 'partnership' is a stretch on your part."

She should've known better, that it was too good to be true. His father was, after all, legendary for having such a cold, black heart. Dimitri Volodin had been into anything that could turn a profit, whether legal or illegal, usually where it hurt people more than it helped. Dimitri's only son, Anton, was no different.

* * *

Stay tuned…


	7. Chapter 7

For notes and disclaimer, please see part one.

Previously: Clint realizes that Fury has sent a full complement of agents to back him up, though they're no closer to finding Natasha. Meanwhile, Natasha undergoes yet another round of an experiment that doesn't work to Anton Volodin's expectations.

* * *

With more boots on the ground, Clint had the benefit of surveillance without having to do so himself. Hobbling around with a thick cast on his left leg wasn't exactly surreptitious, after all. Coulson approved cameras for the recon team, allowing Clint to sit in his room and keep an eye on everything from a distance—as he preferred.

Having acquired a laptop with SHIELD photo-recognition software, he watched as it scanned each and every face that was recorded. While he didn't trouble himself with watching the percentages flicker for each image, he watched for specific gaits—Natasha's walk was distinctive. She had mannerisms that, even when she tried to hide them behind the guise of some _other_ visage, she couldn't. Those were the things that concerned him most, finding _his _Natasha his way.

He'd never pointed out the flaw to her before—mostly because he never wanted her to lose herself completely. If she didn't have landmarks, how could she ever find her way back?

The surveillance stretched from hours into days, and then into weeks. With nothing to show for the expense, Fury was ready to pull the plug.

Clint was still a good three weeks from getting full use of his injured leg, though he had managed to go down to just one crutch instead of two, easing a little weight onto his still-healing leg. Whether the doctors would've approved, he didn't know or care. "I understand, Director, but we're clearing zones of the city systematically. There's still a good third left where we haven't even scratched the surface yet."

"It's time to face facts, Barton. You screwed up. You disobeyed a direct order to kill her back in Budapest and look where that's gotten us."

"Look at what she and I have accomplished together, things we might've been able to do without her… but you don't know that for certain."

"You're outta time. Pack it up. Your flight leaves in two hours."

"Sir, we're so close—" tried Clint, desperately grasping at straws.

"My orders are final, Barton, and that's something you ought to recognize before you find yourself on the wrong end of a disciplinary action."

"I—" Clint stopped dead when the scanner on his laptop registered a ninety-nine percent match. "It's Nat…" Conflicting emotions tumbled over him, enveloping him in excitement and relief, tinted with a healthy dose of concern.

"What the—bring that up on the main screen," barked Fury, wanting to see exactly what Clint was seeing. "Agent Welch, move in."

* * *

Natasha walked alongside a larger middle-aged woman, both in parkas. But as the camera angle neared the missing agent, it became clear to Clint that something was wrong. The Black Widow he knew was acutely aware of her surroundings at all times. Her eyes would casually scan the area, they would take in everything. She seemed perfectly content to watch the ground in front of her as she strolled aimlessly along.

"Something's not right," Clint responded, anxiousness and fear gripping his heart.

"Approach with caution," Fury amended to Welch.

What happened next, no one could've predicted. The middle-aged woman pulled a handgun from her coat pocket and fired at Welch, squeezing the trigger in rapid succession. It was evident she wasn't a crack shot, or even remotely trained, but the fight or flight reaction took over with a vengeance, taking out a highly-skilled SHIELD agent in mere seconds.

"All units, converge on S-12!" Fury demanded. "Agent down, we have an agent down."

Clint winced when he saw the panic and utter trepidation in Natasha's eyes. That wasn't his partner. She looked genuinely frightened by what happened, like she didn't know what to do. If there was one thing he knew for certain about Natasha, it was that she thought three, four steps ahead of everyone—it was how she had stayed alive as a free agent, working for herself. "Nat, no!" he found himself yelling as the woman suddenly went at Natasha with a syringe, practically stabbing the needle into his partner's neck.

"Somebody get out there and pick up the Black Widow!" Fury thundered.

Clint watched in absolute agony as Natasha's eyes rolled back in her head, her lids fluttering closed, before she slumped in a heap on the ground before being dragged out of the camera's view.

While Fury continued to issue orders, Clint took a screen capture of the other woman, running her image through the photo-recognition software. He narrowed the search parameters, hoping he was lucky as he restricted it to Russian residents and nationals only. His heart dropped to his knees when she was identified a minute and a half later and her criminal dossier appeared. "Sir, I have—"

"I don't care how you get there, just move it!"

Clint was fairly certain Fury had forgotten he was on the phone with him, but he wasn't about to be ignored. "Director!" he exclaimed.

Fury fell silent for a half a second, as though he was processing who was yelling at him. "What!"

"We've got trouble; check your screen."

Fury read aloud: "Dr. Irina Olenev… fantastic."

"Known associations include Dimitri Volodin. Sir, she may have lured Natasha there as payback for his arrest a year ago."

"I need her full profile, everything we have on this doctor and I need it _now_."

* * *

Irina dragged Natasha into the nearby alley, pulling her cell phone from her pocket. She could only imagine what Anton would say, but she couldn't worry about that yet. First, they'd need to be picked up, to get out of there before the authorities arrived.

"What is it, Doctor?" asked the annoyed Anton.

"We have trouble. SHIELD is in town; I've killed one agent but we need an extraction."

"We?" he repeated.

"I still have Romanoff," she said, glancing at the lump at her feet.

"Where are you?" he asked, his voice pinched.

"Not far from the lab, but I can't get her back there; I don't have the strength to carry her, and I'm sure someone will have heard the gunshots…" He was silent, and the initial seconds stretched to infinity for Irina. "Surely you do not want us caught… I'll be interrogated, made to say what happened… it won't just be me that goes down for this," she said, the fear causing her voice to raise an octave.

"Settle yourself," he spat. "I'm sending a car for you."

She inhaled deeply, feeling all the worry drain from her body. "Thank you."

As she had hoped, it didn't take long for her ride to arrive. While the authorities were cordoning off the area of the shooting, they had yet to fully explore the nearby alleys, and she knew that, before they reached her hiding place, she, Natasha, and the murder weapon would be long gone.

When she climbed into the back of the spacious town car, she was surprised to see Anton himself in the front passenger seat. "You came…"

"I came for my property," he said, nodding toward the still-limp body of Natasha, half in a chair, half in the floorboards.

She thought back to their earlier conversation, about his saying they weren't partners; that she was more like an employee. "Still," she said, settling herself behind him.

"To the lab," he told the driver, who nodded as he climbed behind the wheel.

"She's seen too much. We'll have to attempt one more restart," Irina said, glancing at Natasha's form.

She started to stir a little, grunting.

Anton turned in his seat to look fully into the back of the car. "How do you know it was a SHIELD agent?"

"He wasn't a local; his Russian was terrible, fragmented. Plus, the way he looked at Natasha… That was who he had come for. That was who he wanted. No one else should be looking for her, no one except her agency."

"This man you killed; what did he look like?"

"Dark skin, dark eyes… Tall." She shrugged.

He nodded slowly.

Natasha winced, rubbing at her sore neck. When she opened her eyes and she saw the gun in the seat beside her, her lids slammed open wide.

"She saw all this?" he asked, nodding to Natasha who was trying to determine her surroundings.

Irina sighed. "Yes."

"While I appreciate your attempts at service, Dr. Olenev, I believe that I'm invoking the provisions in our contract to terminate you."

The turn of phrase caught her off guard for a moment. "You mean, terminate my services…?"

"Well, that, too," he said, resting his silenced weapon on top of his seat.

* * *

Stay tuned…


	8. Chapter 8

For notes and disclaimer, please see part one. Also, apologies for the delays this week in posting. Starting a new job while under the weather is, um... an adventure. Feeling somewhat better now, so I'm attempting to get back on schedule. Thanks! ~K

Previously: A SHIELD agent finds Natasha only to be killed by Irina. Anton Volodin decides he's through with the experimentation with trying to reprogram Natasha, and kills Irina.

* * *

It didn't take long for SHIELD to follow the money, to connect the dots, and put together that Irina Olenev was operating out of a rundown three-story building in a former financial district. While the initial call was for Clint to stay out of the action, he argued his way onto the team, only entering once the rest of recon took out any possible hostiles.

While it annoyed Clint to stand on the sidelines for even a split second, what he saw when he ascended the stairs was shocking. The first floor had been ransacked, with desks overturned and splintered. Papers had been placed into garbage cans and lit on fire. They were nothing but smoldering ash when Clint hobbled through.

The second floor was difficult to walk through. Two dozen men and women were dead, though SHIELD operatives hadn't fired a single shot. All of the carnage had happened before their arrival. To Clint's uneasy relief, Natasha wasn't among the dead.

The third floor was peculiar. There was one office, with a large two-way mirror that had been broken out. Beyond the observation room was a lab. It might've been operational as early as that morning, but the glass littered the floor, catching and reflecting the large industrial lights from the ceiling.

Sitting in the middle of the room was Dr. Irina Olenev, also dead, but there were no bloodstains around her. The gun that she had used to kill SHIELD Agent Welch sat at her feet.

Clint sighed as he called it in. "Seems somebody tried to wrap this up for us with a nice, neat little bow excepting we still don't have Nat," he explained to Fury.

"Send in what you can from the lab—"

"All your horses and all your men, there's no way you can put this back together. All we've got are fractured, practically pulverized test tubes and beakers. All the paperwork has been burned, and whatever accelerant they used, there's no way we're gaining any information from this."

"Agent Barton?"

Clint turned when he heard one of the agents approach. "Hold on, Director," he said, lowering his cell phone.

The younger agent held out a phone book. "Found this downstairs, at a desk in the back corner—we found Agent Romanoff's fingerprints there. All the files and everything was gone, the hard drive removed from the computer, but seems they overlooked this in the bottom drawer." He flipped through it, and Clint stopped it on a page somewhere in the middle.

It was covered with dozens of drawings—arrows, spiders, the SHIELD logo, and all with question marks, scribbled Russian notations in Natasha's handwriting. Things like: _What are these? Why are they important? Why can't I get them out of my head?_

He lifted the phone to his ear again. "Sir? She's definitely under the influence of some kind of experiment, something to erase her memory maybe? Looks like it didn't take as well as they probably would've hoped."

"That's all well and good to know, but where are we, Barton?"

They were kind of nowhere, but Clint wasn't going to accept that, nor would he report that. "We're closer now than ever, and we can't give up on her, especially not when we know she can't defend herself properly."

"Move fast," Fury said, ending the call.

Clint tore one of the pages from the book, folding it and putting it into his pants pocket.

* * *

When she woke, she felt sore. Her neck hurt, and her back. When she tried to move her hand, to brush her hair from her eyes, she found that she couldn't. Her arms were restrained, chained to the cold metal floor where she sat.

While she wanted to panic, she realized that she couldn't. She'd seen people die—the man in the alley at the hands of Irina, and then Irina herself. The remnants of her memory seemed fragmented. She saw the insurance company, her apartment… she saw high-tech offices, an endless gymnasium complex. She saw kind eyes and an easy smile turn to a harsh expression when his bow was drawn…

Words tumbled through her head, too. Shield, fury, hawk… things that didn't make any sense until she remembered the man in the car had talked about a SHIELD agent. SHIELD…

_It's more than an acronym for a mouthful of words_.

It was as though that one word unlocked closet holding all of her deepest, darkest secrets. The floodgates burst open and she remembered. She remembered Clint, she remembered that she was the Black Widow, she remembered—

"Awake, are we?"

Her green eyes slowly cut over toward her captor. She remembered _him_. "Anton."

He smiled slightly. "Seems Dr. Olenev's serums have finally run their course. It's been a long time, Natasha."

"Not long enough," she returned.

Anton chuckled. "It seems you were paid to do a simple job… one you failed to perform. Surely you remember that…"

"That's what this is? You're looking for a refund?" she asked incredulously. "My assets prior to joining SHIELD were frozen."

"And this matters to me… why?" he asked, kneeling down to be closer to face-to-face with her. "You were paid to do a job which you didn't complete. As of now, there are two optimal outcomes."

"Mind control, brain scrambling… that wasn't enough to settle this score?"

"It was an interesting venture, one that didn't work. So I'm back to simpler business terms: you can either repay the money, with interest, or you can finish the job."

"I can't pay you back. Government contracts aren't as lucrative as what I used to do."

"Option B, then."

"I can't do that either."

Anton sucked in a breath. "Can't isn't the word. 'Won't' is what you're looking for. You really don't want to push me for another option, do you?"

"I don't know, Anton, I'm fond of the idea where you let me walk out of here and we forget this whole thing ever happened."

He laughed. "Sweet Natasha… Always so calm under pressure." He slowly got to his feet. "I'm feeling strangely generous to you."

"Don't strain yourself…"

The mirth vanished from his face. "I can either kill you… or I can kill the one responsible for your change of heart: your partner, Clint Barton."

She felt her stomach flip, her blood pressure skyrocket, though she did everything she could to prevent it from showing on her face. "I don't know what you're talking about."

He laughed, a cold, calculating sound that sent chills down her spine. "Oh, but I do. I know he was there. His weapon is unique, in this day and age, is it not?"

"It was my call, Anton. I chose not to pull the trigger."

"That may have been the case a year ago. But it's not now. Someone's going to die—you, Barton, my father… or your bank account. It's your decision."

* * *

He listened as the doors clanged shut behind him with a resonant thud. Places like that never bothered him, mostly because he knew he was only ever there for a visit. It didn't have the permanence that the residents may have felt.

The older man in an orange jumpsuit shuffled his way toward the table and sat down, his gnarled hands, shackled, resting between them. "You aren't my lawyer."

"No, sir, but I do have a question for you." Phil Coulson watched as Dimitri Volodin sized him up.

"And what is that?"

"You were asked before, who you would want dead—"

"That's your question?" he asked with a laugh. "To cover old ground?"

Coulson's smile was placating. "No. You said the list of those who _didn't_ was much shorter. I'd like that list, if you don't mind."

Dimitri's eyes hardened. "There is but one name, but one person I trust implicitly, and that is my son, my heir, Anton Dimitrievitch."

Coulson stood.

"That's it?"

"That's it," he said with a nod.

"You are a strange man…"

The senior SHIELD operative paused for a moment. "So I've been told."

* * *

Stay tuned…


	9. Chapter 9

For notes and disclaimer, please see part one.

Previously: Clint checks out the "insurance" office only to find that Irina and her team are all dead, and most evidence is missing, although Natasha's fingerprints lead to the realization that her memory is most likely gone. When Natasha wakes up, she faces Anton who offers her options, most of them ending in death. Coulson checks in with Dimitri, who says the only person who wouldn't have wanted him dead is his son.

* * *

While Natasha had never given up her immediate past employer before joining SHIELD, it hadn't mattered until now. With the Olenev-Volodin connection, Clint did his best to remember every last detail about that mission. But, the problem was, he'd taken his eyes off the prize then. Instead of seeing Natasha as a threat, he saw her as an opportunity. And the Volodin mess was all just background noise.

He was pulled from his thoughts when a new file appeared on his computer screen—that of Anton Volodin. The son of Dimitri had taken over his father's legal empires long before the incident a year ago. Anton had numerous holdings, including a half dozen warehouses within a ten mile radius of Irina's destroyed lab.

Surveillance footage of each building showed activity only at one—the most defensible one of course.

The message from Coulson was brief: "You're welcome. Bring her home."

Clint reached for his quiver and bow.

* * *

Natasha had been gifted with small hands, but she knew that the restraints on her wrist were too tight to escape from even if she broke her thumbs. There was little else in the room, and nothing within her restricted reach. She was, without a doubt, very securely held.

Just as she began to wrack her brain, someone entered.

"Dinner time," said the man she didn't recognize, entirely too cheerfully. He was short, stocky, with a receding hairline.

Natasha watched as he set the bowl of warm stew in front of her before backing away. "Wait! How… How am I supposed to eat this?" She tried—and failed—to reach the spoon that was just out of her grasp.

The man hesitated, his black eyes darting from her secured hand to her sad eyes and pretty pout. "I guess I could undo one hand…"

She gave him the brightest of smiles as he crossed toward her, releasing her left arm. "Thank you so much," she murmured.

As he started to move away, she kicked his feet out from under him and pulled him into a headlock. Though he struggled, it only took a little over two minutes for him to lose consciousness.

She shoved him off of her, reaching into his jacket pocket where he'd dropped the key to her shackles. Once she'd freed herself, she secured him in her place. A quick search of his person yielded a small pistol in a shoulder holster. As she ejected the clip, she realized it would have to do until she had the opportunity to upgrade.

While she hadn't been conscious when she was brought in, she knew that she had to get out. If the rest of Anton's men were as lazy as the last, she might be able to catch a break. She remembered, too, when she and Clint had taken out Dimitri's never-ending army.

Sliding the door open slightly, she peeked out. At least the hallway was clear.

* * *

His plan was met with some hesitancy by the other SHIELD operatives, but he made it clear that the parameter by which they would measure success was that Natasha was freed and returned to safety. Everything else was gravy.

And he knew that one of the major concerns was his ability to get out after Natasha was located. With his leg still in a cast, and his skill set being greater from a position of height, he could see the obvious difficulties, and the reasons why the others weren't sure about the viability of the plan.

It didn't matter once the tear gas canisters were deployed. He entered the building at the backdoor after the rest of the team had gone in. While the others were to search the entirety of the building, he was going up, and the backdoor was closest to the metal stairs that led to the warehouse's lofted management office.

His upper body strength came in handy as he propelled himself up the stairs without his crutch, swinging his cast-covered leg enough that he could take two or three steps each time. It wasn't easy or pretty, but it got the job done.

As he neared the landing, three men barreled out of the office—all foot soldiers by the look of them—and they fired over the rickety wooden railing at the agents below, their vision still partially impeded by the slowly dissipating gas. Clint paused briefly, extending his recurve bow and nocking an arrow. It hit one solidly, sending him through the railing and to the first floor. By the time the other two had noticed, the second man was hit and falling. The third tried to outrun Clint's arrow, but he failed.

He took their previous position, and it did afford the best view of the action below.

"Anybody with eyes on Widow?" he asked over the radio frequency. He took the unfortunate silence as a "no."

* * *

When the black canister landed three feet from her, the first thing she noticed was the stylized eagle logo. She couldn't give into relief, however, as she kicked it further away from her. While Natasha appreciated knowing that the cavalry had arrived, she desperately didn't want to be a friendly fire casualty.

The frightened commotion of Anton's men was punctuated by gunfire—both the wild shots of the petrified men and the practiced, aimed blasts from the best fighting force in the world. It echoed all around her. If she could get out of the maze of hallways and loading docks, where she'd been held, then she was sure she'd find the SHIELD operatives. Covering her mouth with her hand, she dashed toward where she'd just kicked the tear gas.

While it stung at her eyes, she was able to keep it from burning her nose and mouth. By the time she got to the main floor, her vision had blurred to blindness. Taking a precious, necessary moment, she closed her eyes to try to clear them, letting the cleansing tears escape down her cheeks. In that second, she heard the familiar sound of an arrow sailing through the air. Opening her eyes again, she scanned along the catwalk, easily spotting her partner.

Clint dipped his head to her slightly, firing another arrow into one of Anton's guards who had gotten entirely too close to her in that second she'd had to take.

She felt a sudden, controlled panic when she spotted Anton himself ascending the stairs. In the past year, she and Clint had worked out signals, a kind of communication that was all their own. She was able to indicate to him that he was about to have dangerous company. Only when she saw him back up did she remember that he'd injured himself on the last mission, that he'd broken his leg.

As she started to cross toward the stairs, large arms grabbed her.

"I've got Romanoff."

She could hear Clint's response over the radio, clear as day. "Get her out of here. Mission accomplished. Go."

As she was being carted away, she wriggled against his arms. "What about Barton?"

"His orders were explicit," responded the agent.

He might've given the order, but she wasn't about to obey it. Anton wouldn't just kill Clint; he'd torture him first. Desperate, Natasha stomped on the SHIELD agent's foot, causing enough of a distraction for him to release her. The second she was free, she bolted.

Clint tried to retreat into the office, taking two more men down, but he soon found himself staring at Anton with a gun in his face. Reluctantly, he lifted one arm, the other still holding his bow.

"You're from the wrong time, archer…"

Clint shrugged. "Classics never go out of style."

"Anton!" Natasha yelled as she crested the top of the stairs.

Clint wished she'd gone on—she looked exhausted, winded.

Anton smiled, but he never turned around. He still had three men with him, and they were holding her at bay. "Now's the time," he told her. "Make your decision."

"What's he talking about, Nat?" Clint asked.

Natasha couldn't pull her eyes from Clint. For him to be there to get her, hurt as he was, was moving. It caused a twinge of pain to twist in her heart, for her stomach to flip flop. She wished that their reunion could've been different. When she saw him smile, she realized he was keying in a new arrowhead. She turned her attention to Anton. "I have you answer." As the crime boss turned, she knew it would give Clint the distraction he needed. "Not Clint."

The first arrow sailed, hitting its mark on the ground at Anton's feet. Its head was a beacon, blinking an incessant red light. Clint selected another arrow while Natasha bounced around Anton's men, reaching her partner and sliding her arms around his solid chest. No sooner had she grabbed onto him, he fired again, this time away from them, at the ceiling.

Anton looked toward where he thought Natasha had been, only to find that place empty. Spinning on his heel, he took a step toward them. "You can't win."

It was up to Natasha to help propel them off the second floor, and she did so, sending them out over the main floor, with Clint's arm securely around the rope from the grappling arrow, allowing them to rappel down.

As Anton's men attempted to open fire on them, the explosive arrow blew, taking the floor out from beneath them.

Clint's landing wasn't perfect and, if it wasn't for Natasha, he'd have re-injured his left leg or possibly matched the other break on his right.

"When that cast comes off, you're getting tumbling lessons."

"Is that an invitation?" he asked, grinning in relief.

"If that's the only way you'll learn…"

As the smoke cleared from the explosion, only the SHIELD team was left standing. Clint eased an arm around his partner's shoulders. "Let's get out of here."

"I cannot tell you how ready I am to go home," Natasha confessed quietly.

A small smile tugged at the corners of Clint's lips. "Me, too."

* * *

Stay tuned…


	10. Chapter 10

For notes and disclaimer, please see part one.

Previously: Natasha escapes her captors in the middle of the SHIELD rescue operation. Reunited with Clint, they take down Anton Volodin.

* * *

While Fury had wanted to write her up for disobeying orders, Clint argued—valiantly and rightly—that Natasha had been through enough. After all, she'd been kidnapped and tortured. After thirty minutes of blustering, Fury relented, leaving her with an order not to leave without permission ever again, and that she was to take the next two weeks off… mostly because the SHIELD doctors wouldn't let Clint come back to active duty until then, and there was no point in breaking up one of the most successful teams they had.

Natasha was glad that Clint had insisted on having the briefing before they left Russia. She wasn't sure how Fury would've reacted in person but, over the computer, it wasn't too bad. And afterward, there was a long flight back to the States.

Clint settled into his chair early, ensuring that his throbbing leg was propped up and comfortable. He felt—finally—at ease. His partner, on the other hand, didn't look it. "What is it?"

She glanced at him from across the aisle, blinking. "What?"

He nodded to the empty seat beside him, thankful that Fury had at least opted to send them back in style, on a private jet.

Reluctantly, she moved to sit beside him. "Why did you come?"

"Because you're my partner. That's what partners do."

"But, your leg…"

He shrugged. "So I get yelled at by the docs at my next check up. Fury's yelling at you was much worse."

"You could've hurt yourself worse."

"You could've died out there by yourself."

She fell silent.

"By the way, I appreciate your being kind on the alias. While it wasn't one of your typical ones, 'Black, Willow,' was kind of cool."

She looked at him curiously.

"What?"

"That wasn't… that wasn't the alias I used to fly out."

"Don't pull my leg, 'spider, it's broken."

"I'm not. I used Sharon Clinton."

Clint's eyes grew wide. "No way."

"Sharon has parts of Natasha and Romanoff in it, and Clinton… well…"

Clint was easily able to tell it was his first and part of his last name. "Nat," he breathed. "You're telling me it was sheer, dumb luck that I found you?"

She smiled a little. "I still contend that's how you found me in Budapest."

"Just… do me a favor, all right? So I don't have to press my luck anymore… Next time you think you have to go off, for whatever reason, take me with you." He paused, realizing that Fury hadn't even asked the question he was about to ask. "Why did you leave anyway?"

She settled into the seat, leaning against him lightly, with her head on his shoulder. "I thought that… that someone I had wrongly, accidentally harmed before needed help. I was trying to balance my ledger."

"I can help you with that," he told her for what felt like the millionth time.

"The more you help me, the more I owe you, the more out of balance it becomes."

Clint let his fingers get lost in her soft hair. "I'm your partner. You don't have to write down what I do for you in your ledger."

"You know I can't do that."

"I know," he murmured. Sighing slightly, he chastely kissed the top of her head. "Owing me is better than the alternatives, though, right?"

She was silent for a moment. "I don't know… you keep pressing that dumb luck, you may need more of my help."

"See? Exactly."

"Get some rest, Barton."

"You, too, Nat," he said, wrapping her up in his arms, keeping her close.

While she thought about moving, she didn't. In all her years of moving about, of going wherever work took her, he was starting to feel like home. And besides, maybe he was right.

Maybe.

* * *

End.


End file.
